How are Asia s Leading Telcos Enhancing the Customer Experience?

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1 How are Asia s Leading Telcos Enhancing the Customer Experience? Everybody knows that delighting your customers is good for business, but how many telcos actually do it? According to the following survey results, not enough! A recent global survey commissioned by Tektronix Communications canvassed 3,500 mobile subscribers across EMEA, U.S. and Asia-Pacific and found that: 23% of mobile subscribers rate their provider a 5 out of 10 or lower for customer care. 24% of respondents stating their intention to leave their mobile operator in the next 12 months. 42% stated that they were at best undecided on changing providers. According to the survey, the key drivers for churn among mobile subscribers are: Poor quality customer care 53% Poor value for money 38% Network quality 34% Limited services available compared competitors 27% Poor quality customer care is one of the biggest frustrations facing telco customers, so the big question is, what s holding the industry back?

2 Well according to our conversations with the market, one of the most frequently cited challenge is accurately estimating the ROI of a CEM initiatives and gaining that all important C-level support. With this in mind, we asked four CEM experts from Asia s leading telcos, how they deal with this challenge and how they plan to enhance CEM in the near future. Becquini Akbar General Manager of Marketing Loyalty and Retention, PT XL Axiata When it comes to enhancing customer loyalty through CEM initiatives, often there will be no direct revenue, but instead the indirect revenue will be huge. We can see it from the churn reduction perspective, the overall impact and it s effect on our NPS. In my experience, it will be very difficult to predict the impact of your CEM initiatives if you don t have economic models for your NPS. However if you have an economic model you ll be able to accurately predict the ROI and better justify the initiative to your C-level executives. Presently at PT XL Axiata, we are consolidating our loyalty points scheme across different industries. This means that if our customers do business with our partner companies in transport, fuel, oil, banking, they will enjoy greater rewards. However one thing I have observed within our industry is that a lot of our digitised consumers are becoming increasingly disengaged with points based loyalty schemes. They want to be appreciated and rewarded in a different way. One technique that I see a lot of opportunity in is gamerfication. This can be applied by setting our consumers a fun task or mission each week, then rewarding them for completing it. This is something I hope we will focus on over the next three years.

3 Alok Kumar Chief Service Delivery Officer Aircel Limited In my view, the key element is getting the aims of the CO and CMO aligned, so that their plans have a shared purpose. This includes the alignment of various touch points, processes and getting the necessary resources allocated. The tricky part is the allocation of resources, trying to strike the balance between investing in short term goals and the long term benefits of customer experience management. Another aspect is, since a lot of customer service is provided by external partners, how do you get external partners aligned with your brand promise? Often external partners are driven by their own KPIs so how do you get them delivering customer service to your own standards? Then a third aspect is the challenge of creating a clear and appropriate organization structure that will support the CEM delivery. Really it all boils down to getting the CEO buy-in. After that the business value that CEM will provide has been demonstrated, then you ll have the resources needed to enhance and standardize excellent customer service. One way to help get this buy-in is to develop metrics that can measure the ROI on existing processes and CEM initiatives, because it s only with this information that the CEO will appreciate the value of CEM to the business. My aim over the next 2-3 is to improve the accuracy with which we measure our performance on the customer satisfaction index and raising this. One of the ways we ll be doing this is engaging our customers more through digital platforms, which in turn will allow us to better measure our performance. Develop metrics that can measure the ROI on existing processes and CEM initiatives, because it s only with this information that the CEO will appreciate the value of CEM to the business.

4 Sandra De Zoysa Group Chief Customer Officer Dialog Axiata PLC I joined Dialog way back in 1997 when we were positioned 4th among the telco s in the country. Within a short span of just 5 years, Dialog got to the position of undisputed Market Leader among 5 players and we continue to remain #1 to date. Our CEO s vision and commitment towards innovation via multiple dimensions of product and customer experience management remains a critical success factor after 18 years at the helm of Dialog. For example, Dialog was the first company in the region and amongst the Axiata Group to appoint a chief customer officer and form a senior leadership committee for CE excellence; this was eight years ago. In addition, we are consistent in our focus on providing the latest in technology and innovation to the Sri Lankan consumers, often ahead of the rest. We endeavor to provide services and solutions that add value and enhance the lifestyle of our customers at an affordable cost. For example, we were the first telco in the country to provide GSM technology and later expanded our portfolio to fixed line, broadband, TV and e-commerce. Recently at the GSMA Conference 2015, we won several prestigious awards, making us one of the few telcos in the Asia Pacific region to do so and these awards and associated initiatives are: The NFC & Mobile Money Award ez Cash is a hybrid mobile money model which allows customers and merchants to initiate transactions bridging technological and financial gaps. It was recognized by GSMA as the world s first Mobile Money Service that opened its Mobile Payment Platform that opened its Mobile Payment Platform, Merchant Eco-system and Brand to customers of other Mobile Networks namely Etisalat and Hutchison, creating ONE payment solution for all their financial needs.

5 Sandra De Zoysa Group Chief Customer Officer Dialog Axiata PLC Award for Best Technology Enabler Ideamart is Dialog Axiata s Developer Engagement Programme. It enables third parties to use Dialog infrastructure in the form of REST API s to build mobile applications and monetise them. The Ideamart developer community ranges from students to professional app developers. Dialog s Ideamart team runs an island wide engagement program helping the community to generate Ideas, enrich them, build apps and mentor them whilst encouraging and supporting venture funding. Over the last 18 months, over apps have been created by a community of developers. With over 100 startups, Ideamart is powering the next wave of telco startups in Sri Lanka. Dialog Axiata PLC is a subsidiary of Axiata Group Berhad and we are very fortunate to have the President of Axiata Group support CEM, digital/social customer care and prioritise these ideals within the board agenda. In fact he was the winner of the special GSMA Chairman s Award 2015 in recognition of his outstanding contribution. As for the future, we are focusing on building the digital customer experience, as well as the adoption of new technological innovations. We see that increasingly, our current and future customers are digital natives, whose demands and expectations are quite different. Therefore we need to offer them the "next gen" of customer service and experience. For instance we can expect to see "wearable tech" become very popular and fashionable in the next few years as it will support integrated and connected living. Another is that the Internet of Everything will change the way customers of the future interact with service providers. So I would say that the most interesting and exciting time to be involved in the CEM telco space is here and now!

6 Darren Choo AVP Social CRM StarHub At StarHub, we have been placing great importance in social media and we started our social media customer initiative as early as seven to eight years ago. In January 2014, we launched our social media listening lab. This customised platform allows social media monitoring to be more effective as it allows us to actively listen to and extract real-time conversations about StarHub in Singapore. The initiative helps us in responding quicker to a feedback or query on Facebook and Twitter. It also tracks the locations of Singapore mobile, pay TV or broadband conversations through location tagged tweets. Thanks to this, we are now able to identify conversation sentiments and tag customers as brand advocates and potential influencers, that complement and assist in CRM management. For our efforts, we were named the top Socially Devoted brand on Facebook in Singapore by Social Bakers for four consecutive quarters in For now, we are in the journey to evolve the role of social media in customer experience and this is what I ll be explaining in my presentation at Customer Experience Management Telecoms. We are now able to identify conversation sentiments and tag customers as brand advocates and potential influencers, that complement and assist in CRM management.

7 09-11 June 2015 Singapore Becquini Akbar GM of Marketing Loyalty and Retention, PT XL Axiata Sandra De Zoysa Group Chief Customer Officer Dialog Axiata PLC Alok Kumar Chief Service Delivery Officer Aircel Limited Darren Choo AVP Social CRM StarHub